Videos - see all 7

Billboard

We are The Mae Shi. We were born in Los Angeles in late 2002. If you are just hearing of us now, you missed out on four records and 250 shows of busted electronics, spazzier-than-fuck drums, crazy-ass boogie guitar, distorted caveman bass and throat-destroying vocals. You missed us playing in 100 different basements and garages to 100s of different kids. You missed our 59-minute-long debut EP and our 5RC debut full-length, Terrorbird, which was a hyper ADD-afflicted hip-hop concept album about monsters and the Old Testament. You missed six different home-screened t-shirt designs and our 2004 mix tape, which collected our favorite 1200 songs in under 80 minutes. You missed Heartbeeps, which was the next step in our self-improvement plan, in which we put our best foot forward and tried to state our case powerfully and succinctly in 15 minutes. You missed both our "Celebration 32 Shows in 30 Days Tour" and our "Victory Lap 43 Shows in 42 Days Tour." You missed our 5RC-released DVD, Lock The Skull, Load The Gun, which documented our first tour and unveiled 33 music videos. You missed our split LP with Rapider Than Horsepower, Do Not Ignore The Potential. You missed shows with Deerhoof and The Mountain Goats and Wives and Xiu Xiu and Fat Day and The Ex and Racebannon and Best Fwends and Wrangler Brutes and Mika Miko. Most importantly, you missed Ezra Buchla and Corey Fogel, who were both huge parts of what made The Mae Shi the band we are.

However, all that's in the past now, and there's plenty more in the future for us together. You'll see Jonathan Gray, you'll see us reach for pop gold, you'll see us boogie harder than we ever have before. You'll see us take "the show" a little more seriously, you'll see us incorporate what we learned on Broadway and in Electronics Shop and 1000 hours of headphone research into something you can watch and hopefully move from side to side to.

Amidst all of this change, some things are constants. What's been done has been done, and it's of little interest to us unless we can repackage it in a new and exciting way. The problem with "retro" is that it never comes back. No one's begging for a Stray Cats reunion (except Jeff). No one's wondering what Bowser's doing now. The only option is to forge ahead, to try new things, to test out bad ideas, to all try to sing and work together and hope the road we're on leads somewhere. It's about the journey and the destination. This all sounds immensely airy but we believe it -- at its core the rock and roll band is a surrogate family for our culturaly extended childhood, it's our self-help group, it's our soap box, it's a way to see what we're really capable of. We have little interest in doing what others are doing, particularly if they are doing it well. Listen to them instead. Growing up is tough. This is our attempt to grow up.

This is our story, and we invite you to come along. It's about self-improvement and trying to live life at the top of your lungs, living life rightly, respecting others, making something you're proud of, and trying to sort out all the static and figuring out what matters. It's about trying to forge that third way, that way everyone said it couldn't be done. We do this in basements and backyards and in fancy clubs we don't even feel comfortable in. We do this in living rooms and bathrooms and bedrooms and wherever the sound sounds best. We do this with ten dollar keyboards and Olvera Street guitars and with light-reactive synths we built ourselves. We do this with broken cymbals and busted speakers. We do this the first thing when we wake up. We do this after a hard day at work, when it's the only solace and life seems to be a constant source of frustration. We do this on weekends. We do this all the time.

Store

	The Mae Shi Sound Governor The Mae Shi Sound Governor, a light-sensitive synth designed by Jeff Byron and built and decorated with love by the Mae Shi. The latest incarnation of the synth Jeff built into his guitar. Incredibly simple to use -- press the button and shine a light on it. The brighter the light, the higher the pitch. Runs off a 9-volt battery and has a built-in speaker and a 1/4" output jack. Encased in recycled betamax videocassettes from the 80s. Our favorite movies -- Time Bandits, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lost Boys -- reborn as musical instruments. Each one looks and sounds different. SOLD OUT!
Format DVD	Lock The Skull, Load The Gun To be released April 11, 2006 by 5RC. Our debut DVD, two years in the making. Thirty-two music videos, a full-length tour feature documenting our 2004 "Celebration Tour," and an interactive maze of special features. Ballerinas, motorcycle goths, Help!-era Richard Lester goofiness, and lots of monsters – prehistoric birds, vampires, wolfmen, serial killers, haunted bunnies, hungry cartoon dogs and killer bats. You can view the trailer here if you like downloading 16 meg files or here if you think Youtube is awesome.$15
Format CD	Do Not Ignore The Potential Released January 2006 on Strictly Amateur Films (vinyl hopefully to come soon). A split with our musical girlfriends Rapider Than Horsepower, it's a full-length love-fest, with the Mae Shi contributing 7 1/2 tracks (one is a collaboration with Rapider). This may be, paradoxically, the most challenging and accesible record we've made to date. Little pop experiments that either pay off or just confound, depending on the ears that hear them. We love these songs and hope you do too. Lots of Omnichord on this one. An early version of this record was released Summer 2005 by the Narshardaa label in Germany, with different art. Listen to Remarkably Dirty Animals by the Mae Shi or Look At Me by Rapider Than Horsepower. $10
Format CD	Heartbeeps Released June 7, 2005 by 5RC, this is 16 minutes of the music that was in our head around the time we recorded it (from December 2004 - February 2005). It's a little rock novella, we find it very dense and hope you do too. It might be the best thing we recorded. Little threads for you to follow. Some winking. It rocks pretty hard, we think. Mainly guitar, bass, drums and singing, although there is some non-rock stuff tucked in here. As for vinyl -- we don't know when it will come out, but we hope it will come out some day. Don't hold your breath. If you've seen us live recently you're probably heard these songs. Listen to Born for a Short Time. Art by Sam McPheeters.$8
Format CD	Terrorbird Released July 2004 on the 5RC label (vinyl version available from Strictly Amateur Films). Recorded by the four Mae Shi over the course of six months, from relaxed weekend recording sessions at Ezra's house in Valencia in December to epic caffeine-powered mixing sessions at Jeff's house in Koreatown in March. Two PCs and two Powerbooks daisy-chained together, cords running everywhere, the Mae-Shi focus group of four mixing and remixing, compressing and sound-replacing until every sound was approved. Thirty-three tracks, 43 minutes long. Given a name and a track order March 31, Burned onto CD-R April 1, sent to 5RC April 2, given a release date by Slim April 9, cover art completed by April 15, mastered by JJ Golden April 22. Listen to Vampire Beats or Revelation 3 or Chop 2 or Body 2. 12" version on peach-colored vinyl, only 500 pressed. VINYL IS OUT OF STOCK! $10
	To Hit Armor Class Zero A four-song, 59-minute experiment in home recording built over the course of late 2002 and early 2003 and released in August 2003 on our very own Join, or Die. Things get intense. Old Testament violence, the Book of Revelation as read by Roger Corman, true love in Infocom parsing errors and the most brutal Buchla synth composition recorded in these 2000s (it's 52 minutes long). Smash-mastered as hot as we could get it. Listen to You Can't Do That To An Axe or Summer in Gommorah. 1000 pressed, each new pressing will have new artwork. Vinyl version this fall from Strictly Amateur. $5
SOLD OUT! .. --> --> --> Disc III -->	I and II Two CD-Rs we released with the help of Entropic Tarot to offset some pre-tour thievery. Essentially, a core-dump of our five hard drives -- seventy minutes per CD that includes every song killed by committee, very early demos of Mae Shi tracks, songs that haven't been realized yet. solo stuff by each Shi, strange alternate mixes of songs, and some positive jams. Half-baked? Less than half-baked. For fans only. Packaged in white digipacks, hand-decorated by the band and our friends, and each one comes with a decoder sheet that explains what's happening. We made 100 of each release and hand-numbered each one. We're thinking about keeping this up and releasing some more in the future.$6

Size women's small women's medium women's large men's medium men's large men's x-large

The Mae Shi Pelican Shirt Back in stock! Designed by Ezra and Tim. The Physiologus, a second century work of a popular theological type, described animals both real and imaginary and gave each an allegorical interpretation. It told of the pelican drawing the blood from its own breast to feed its young. The physical reality which probably resulted in this legend is that the long beak of the pelican has a sack or pouch which serves as a container for the small fish that it feeds its young. In the process of feeding them, the bird presses the sack back against its neck in such a way that it seems to open its breast with its bill. The reddish tinge of its breast plumage and the redness of the tip of its beak prompted the legend that it actually drew blood from its own breast. Eighteen centuries of brand equity, ready to wear. Metallic gold ink on a brown American Apparel shirt, made in Los Angeles with the finest jersey cotton. $12

The Join or Die Shirt Designed by Tim with lots of inspiration from Benjamin Franklin. Conceived in a pre-Schwarzenegger fit of west coast superiority -- let's secede, bring Oregon and Washington with us, we'll start that Utopian society. The west coast gets six votes in the U.S. Senate, how many does the east coast get? Thirty-two? As a political solution, post-Republican takeover, not very good. But as a t-shirt, quite handsome. 100% cotton, and pretty nice quality, although not American Apparel. White on black. SOLD OUT

Discography - see all 6

• 

  Heartbeeps

• 

  2004 Mix Tape

• 

  Terrorbird

• 

  To Hit Armor Class Zero

• 

  Do Not Ignore The Potential

• 

  HLLLYH

Band Members - see all 4

• Jeffrey Joseph Byron - Everything

• Brad Joseph Breeck - Everything

• Tim David Martinez - Everything

• Jonathan Pat Grey - Everything

• Add to Friends
• Add Comment
• Send a Message